If it's going to be on the backs of the middle class, we're probably not going to be able to absorb this one. I don't think we've yet realized just how much of a devastating hardship the 2008 finanacial meltdown has placed on most of the true middle and lower income class in this country.

The proof is in all of the people who are now unemployed due to an unamerican offshoring of jobs, which has resulted in extreme losses of state and local municipal taxes, which in turn has led to these agencies having to furlough and eliminate jobs all together just to sustain some basic form of government operation...caveat...some of this is at the convenience of concervative manipulation and control. Nevertheless, as we can see, another meltdown may not be palatable or even possible for taxpayers to cover, given the catch twenty two cycle we find ourselves in due to joblessness and lack of income to pay taxes.

No jobs, no income, no income, no purchasing power, no purchasing power, no taxes collected...we all get this picture. I am personally afraid, that if there is another financial meltdown in the country in the near future, we will be tested unlike anyway we've been at any time in this country. I fear total devistation to a country that has always been a beacon of hope and opportunity for the common of us, until a select few has managed to bring us to where we are today because of greed.

God Bless Us!

They won't get away with it, because people like you have been educating people like me and we are going out and talking to our neighbors. We are learning to message and the message of Cutting Social Security, ending Medicare and the assault on collective bagaining is getting through the fog. People who usually don't pay attention are starting to.

Sadly, Americans do not realize that the Thugs that have ruined their economy Are the same that brought down Nazi Germany. Prescot Bush was one of hitlers biggest financial supporters. Wall Street will get bailed out again on the backs of Tax Payers.

I will fight it. I say let the bums fail. Let them get a taste of what it is like to be down on their luck.

Many of your assertions have no facts to back them up. Where did you get the $60 billion figure from Medicare fraud? Doesn't sound reasonable to me. There are others that I take exception to, but I'll just focus on the first, that Social Security has become a pyramid scheme. I've heard that before from people and it's absolutely not true. Social Security is one of this country's great success stories. It's 75 years old, and has never missed a payment to the retired and to seniors and disabled. Far from being bankrupt, it has enough funds to last until 2037 (I think that's the year) before it starts running out. It is fully funded and is not using funds from workers to pay retirement costs to current workers. It has the money in hand. Nor is the government raiding it, as I've heard some say.

This is not an "entitlement"--unless people mean by that Americans who have paid into Social Security all their lives are entitled to their hard-earned Social Security money.

I also hear people say that the only way to tackle the SS "bankruptcy" or Ponzi scheme issue is to raise the retirement age and cut other benefits. I rarely hear anyone explain that workers quit co9ntributing to SS once their lifetime contributions have reached $106,000, and the simplest way to ensure continued solvency is to raise that limit to maybe $180,000 over the life of the worker constribution. Most of us wouldn't even notice that.

At the moment,

Thom, It's plain stupid reality, that after talking with many co-workers, friends, family, small town citizens, of which I am one, the problem is dissemination of facts and useful information.The greedy sociopaths are winning due to right wing media monopolization. This is not just political rhetoric on my part, I'm dead serious. I have with robust effort worked at communication of truth with these folks for their own good. Guess what, I get mostly Murdoch-fox-soldiers of misinformation bull or just plain apathy. It's F-in depressing. These people vote according to the slightest media suggestion, usually a Rove like tactical lie. We the people, need your show and ones like it to get as big as Fox as well as Bernie multiplied, or we are screwed, it's that simple!

If the polititians,(mostly the republican party) gets their way,it will be done on the back of the New Deal,which the republican party has been trying to undo since Reagan,even though they have been trying to do it longet than that,hopefully everyone will see the light,defeat anyone who even resembles a right winger in 2012, and we throw the bums in jail who caused all this,we can hope but I"m not sure,so far it doesent look good.

If the first $11 trillion bailout in 2008 went to the homeowners they could have stayed in their homes-the prices wouldn't have tanked and their wouldn't have been any pain.The banks would've had to wait for their money.Mortgages should have been modified to reflect the new market apprasials.This new BS confirms what I have always suspected-that we are clearly headed for a 1930's style dustbowl depression-I guess we the poor should just commit mass suicide.

By the way, I discovered a great web site by a man who was, until about 5 years ago, a hedge fund analyst who now has made over 2000 videos on many different subjects...math, chemistry, biology, economics and a lot of other subjects. Check out his web site at www.khanacademy.org

Sal Khan has been featured on a number of TV shows and has given a Ted Talk. Bill Gates has even shown praise of the guy. He has gotten praise from many teachers as well and some school systems are adopting his teaching methods of using short videos that students can play over and over again at their own pace and privacy.

The videos are about 12 minutes in length each. One of the things I have found very interesting is his analysis of the failure of the credit system and economics and banking and his views on the so-called "bailouts". Having a background and an insider's understanding of banking and the economy...he shows us some very interesting things that we should all know about.

I wish that Thom would talk about the Gulf of Mexico as a national disaster not just for u.s., but rather as an international disaster. Tuna spawn in two bodies of water: the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. What affect is the oil gush from the Gulf floor having on Mexico and the nations of the Caribbean? Being u.s.-centric doesn’t help u.s. to grow up and accept that u.s. is part of the international community. Billy Clinton forced that awareness on u.s. when he signed the NAFTA and WTO agreements. His signature on those documents guaranteed that u.s. would become a third world resource for the first world/international corporations/exploiters. The fact that so few people recognized that fact, simply points to the fact that so many of u.s. are u.s.-centric with no clue as to the real experience of being third world. No one bothered to understand that u.s. has viciously, greedily exploited the resources of the nations of the world. And now that that u.s. resources are being exploited by other first world/international corporations, everyone is squealing and complaining and deeply insulted. The u.s. style of life is NOT sustainable for the entire world, let alone for just u.s. The U.S. can continue being a leader, a co-leader, by stepping up and following the lead of Norway and Germany and others in efforts to find alternatives to shelter, energy production/use, and food production. Give huge, extended tax breaks to those alternatives. Wake up—u.s. is a member of the world—always has been and always will be.

My take on Obama::

he is a WMD MoonWalker: Words of Mass Destruction Moonwalker!!!

You think he is going forward but it is really back to the future with his hero Reagan.

The mainstream media has a vested interest in discrediting Greg Mortensen. He's making much more progress in Afghanistan with schools and goodwill than our military is with bombs and guns. And he's making them look bad. The military-industrial complex (who now owns our media) doesn't want people to know that great things are possible without using military force.